Cate McGregor announces end of friendship with Tony Abbott

Transgender advocate Cate McGregor says she's ended her friendship with former Prime Minister Tony Abbott over his "selfish and expedient" campaigning for the No vote.

The cricket commentator and former military officer credited Abbott with helping her through her transition during a 2014 episode of Australian Story.

However on Facebook at the weekend she said her friendship with him was over due to his No vote campaigning which has made it "impossible for us to be friends".

“Sad to share this,” she wrote. “He was there in critical times for me. But his contemptuous dismissal of trans identity for shallow political expediency makes it impossible for us to be friends.

Abbott while PM sitting with McGregor to commentate during an international cricket match. Image: Getty

“I will make no further comment on this and wish him well.

“I also thank him for his stalwart support when I first came out.”

McGregor and Abbott have been friends for years, with the former PM even introducing her episode of Australian Story in 2014.

Related video: In 2014 the pair were such close friends Abbott introduced McGregor's episode of Australian Story

However since Abbott's vocal opposition of same sex marriage, McGregor has been calling him out, most recently on ABC’s The Drum over an opinion piece published by Fairfax Media in which Abbott talked about transgender identity in an effort to explain his opposition to same-sex marriage.

“A man is not a woman just because he wants to be,” he wrote, “and a same-sex relationship should not be able to become a marriage just because activists demand it.”

McGregor accussed Abbott of “whipping people” to make his political point.

“I’ve found this an incredibly dispiriting debate, and for someone whom I considered until this week a very loyal, stalwart friend, who had stood by me during a very arduous and distressing period of my life, I felt pretty distressed and hurt by that,” she told ABC.

“Lurking behind his argument against same-sex marriage, he’s kicking a lot of very innocent people quite extraneously, who have absolutely nothing to do with the question.”

McGregor also criticised Abbott’s comments about Macklemore’s song Same Love being performed at the NRL grand final at the weekend, saying it is “totally selfish and expedient”.

Abbott’s own daughter Frances has publicly opposed her father’s campaign against Macklemore, saying on Instagram the performer should “go harder” following criticism of his hit song.

The former PM's sister Christine Forster publicly called out her brother on Twitter, saying, ""A plebiscite was your idea @TonyAbbottMHR. As a legislator if you thought protections were needed why haven't you put them in place?"